


now that the lilacs are in bloom

by braigwen_s



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Gen, Lampost Hanging (Not Lampshade) - Literal, Reform, State-Sanctioned Violence, The People's Revolution of the Glorious Twenty-Fifth of May, Transfer of Power, caveat lector
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:54:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26740963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/braigwen_s/pseuds/braigwen_s
Summary: The Snapcase Patricianate had certain Rules.  For example, a person who wore a lilac flower was hung from a lamppost by morning.The year of 1972, Ankh-Morpork had had enough.
Comments: 14
Kudos: 41





	now that the lilacs are in bloom

**Author's Note:**

> Title from T.S. Eliot. 
> 
> This fic is Single-Patrician-Hypothesis unfriendly, unless you call it Trousers of Time. I rather suggest you do.

The Snapcase Patricianate had certain Rules. For example, a person who wore a lilac flower was hung from a lamppost by morning, their clothes taken by scavengers. It was generally agreed that whatever had been done to them, it was to be hoped not to be done to their neighbour.

Mothers, frightened, told their daughters not to pick the pretty purple, you mustn’t, Lordship doesn’t like it, come on, let’s go.

Assassins not wearing the lilac were hung up, too. It started out as tall, slim, boys and young men with black hair and bright blue eyes. It ended out as anybody the Watch could find. It was generally agreed that whatever had been done to them, it was to be hoped that they died near the beginning.

Then it expanded to old women caught speaking in Genuese. It was generally agreed that whatever had been done to them, it was to be hoped that they died before the whatever was done.

The year of 1971, the lilacs bloomed a bloody red, and the bodies were stacked five to a post.

The year of 1972, Ankh-Morpork had had enough. On the day of fourth of May[1], the plot began. 

The lilacs bloomed early that year, beginning on the seventeenth of May. 

On the nineteenth of May, Patrician Snapcase died.

On the twentieth of May, the new Patrician was declared. He took the oath to serve the city in the traditional Latatian, and then in Morporkian so the people could understand. He refused to be invested in the throneroom of the Palace. Instead, he knelt outside, and the populace all watched and listened in. Part-way through the ceremony, a lilac was thrown at his feet. Nobody saw who did it, and the guards all reached for their weapons and started towards the crowd. “No,” said the Patrician, Havelock Vetinari, “back to me”. And so they came, and watched in bafflement as he bent down and picked the lilac up. “A very resilient flower,” he said Lord Vetinari, and smiled. He handed the bloom to the high priest of Io, next to him, who thought that it was a death sentence and fainted.

Apart from that little mishap, the transfer of power went quite well. It was certainly not as bloody as people had been expecting. Not nearly as much murder. The calm before the storm, maybe, they thought, and all went to bed early and pretended they were sleeping.

On the twenty-second of May, the Patrician demilitarised the Watch, and revoked all permissions they had been given under Snapcase and Winder. Cable Street was ransacked in broad daylight, and with nothing to hide from the public. The public hid, nevertheless.

On the twenty-third of May, the Patrician relegitimized the Guild of Assassins, and appointed two new guilds. These were the Guild of Thieves and the Guild of Seamstresses. He then sacked the entire City Council, which at that point consisted of potted plants, a horse, and multiple decomposing heads, and appointed a new one, consisting of the oldest and richest Noble families and a selection of the Guilds. The two new Guilds, as well as the Assassins, were included.

The appointed leader of the Seamstresses’ Guild was Rosemary Palm, who had remembered the boys of Treacle Mine Road every year by granting the survivors an annual free night. They were less grateful for the sex, and more grateful for the roof over their heads, and that she hid them from the Watchmen.

On the twenty-fourth of May, the city held its breath.

On the twenty-fifth of May, before the dawn had yet broken, the City Council was ushered to the Rats’ Chamber in the Patrician’s Palace. They waited, nervous, for exactly twenty-five minutes. Then, at twenty minutes past five o’clock, the Patrician entered.

He was wearing Assassins’ black.

There was a sprig of lilac on his breast. No-one noticed, except the people in that room. Lord Ronald Rust had boasted for fifteen years that he had fought against the Lilac Boys. He went very pale, and he gurgled. 

Rosemary Palm had never forgotten. “See how they rise up,” she said, but quietly, because saying those words got people killed. 

Patrician Lord Vetinari smiled at the City Council with genuine benevolence. “Gentlemen,” he said, “ladies, we are here this morning to discuss the future of Ankh-Morpork. I am not here to have you killed. I like to think that we have risen above such wanton brutality. Now, if you have any requests, please do ask me. I should like you to think of me … as an angel.”

The year of 1973, the lampposts were only hung with light.

**Author's Note:**

> [1]: On the Roundworld, the day of the Martyrs of the Carthusian Order, killed by king Henry VIII of England. Coincidentally. 
> 
> It is also Star Wars Day, which the author would like you to ignore.


End file.
